


Now They're Outside Ready To Bust

by tjstar



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Alternate Universe - Heathens (Music Video), Alternate Universe - Prison, Angst, Guardian Angels, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Near Death Experiences, Visions, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-18 10:31:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7311364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tjstar/pseuds/tjstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tyler can only feel alive when his hand grips the gun in his pocket, and when he almost can’t breathe through the sweat gathering inside of the mask on his face.</p><p>And Josh’s wide smile makes him forget about everything that’s weighting him down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Now They're Outside Ready To Bust

Blurryface and Spooky Jim.

They are two pretty famous people in the World of Crime; their life is an endless chain of fights, money, drugs and dirty sex.

They’re rebels who don’t give a fuck about anything, they’re breaking the rules with every step they take, and nobody knows their real faces, well-hidden under the layers of make-up or under the balaclavas.

But here’s the other side of their aliases.

They’re just Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun in real life.

But it’s the top secret.

Both of them are incredibly good at playing hide-and-seek with the police. They change their names too often to get remembered, they change their locations even more often, and Tyler is sure it’s the _real_ life.

He only can feel a little alive when they’re driving away from another crime scene with a bag full of money in the backseat; Tyler can only feel alive when his hand grips the gun in his pocket, and when he almost can’t breathe through the sweat gathering inside of the mask on his face.

And Josh’s wide smile makes him forget about everything that’s weighting him down.

Tyler Joseph loves this shitty, shitty life that consists of hotels and motels, stealing cars and keys, and a bit of drug-dealing. They’re kind of new in this kind of business, but Tyler hopes that they have a chance to make a career there so they can stop their frantic running all across the United States.

Tyler’s plans are weird.

Josh’s plaid shirt smells like weed.

Tyler loves it when Josh shotguns him, making him swallow the streams of the smoke that honestly smells like shit, but Tyler breathes it in, coughing his lungs up a few seconds later.

“You’re doing fine,” Josh says, licking Tyler’s taste off his lips.

He always says Tyler is doing fine, even though Tyler thinks he might die from a burning sensation in his chest when he takes a joint for the first time and sucks the smoke deeper into his lungs. He coughs it all back up, spitting onto the dirty floor of the car and wiping the tears from the corners of his eyes.

Josh offers to shotgun him once again.

And of course, Tyler agrees.

They eventually end up making out, taking each other’s clothes off in process, sharing sloppy kisses and awkward touches, both hot and aroused; the demons just disappear when Josh tells his stupid jokes that make Tyler giggle.

Josh keeps him away from everything that might hurt his fragile mind — from the depression, Josh fights Tyler’s suicidal thoughts, and sometimes Tyler thinks he doesn’t deserve this.

But anyway, this is his life, one and only.

 

***

Robbing banks is a big headache; it’s the months of researching, days of preparation and hours of waiting in the car near the back door of the building.

They’re wearing their red balaclavas like beanies, and they already have their make up on — these red shadows over Josh’s eyes make him look incredibly sexy. He grits his teeth, winking at Tyler, and Tyler responds with a small sheepish smile; he has a black paint smeared all over his hands and on his neck, and he _knows_ this makes them way too noticeable, but no one can catch them.

They’re an Elusive Duo. It’s a thing.

Josh can drive all the types of vehicles — from small cars to huge trucks, and Tyler can be invisible for the security cameras.

Though, Tyler’s biggest flaw is his always overloaded brain; he has a collection of memories about their last cases, and some of them are quite disturbing _._

“Let’s go, Blurry?” Josh elbows Tyler’s ribs lightly and pulls the mask down, covering his face.

Tyler does the same before tugging at Josh’s shirt nervously. No real names at work, he remembers.

“Spooky. Didn’t you forget something?” he asks.

Josh smiles through the slit on his balaclava.

And he kisses Tyler.

It always helps bring the luck back.

Tyler snatches the gun from under the passenger seat and gets out of the car, bracing himself for another tough day.

Though, this time something goes very wrong from the very beginning; Tyler misses one of the cameras while he’s sneaking into the hallway, and he only sees Josh’s back in front of him as they run to the open door.

“This is a robbery! Get down on the floor!”

But this is not what they had planned. Tyler didn’t expect to see Josh getting hit in his temple with the butt of a gun and being restrained in the cop’s arms.

Tyler expected to see a line of people, a middle-aged woman behind the counter, but he only sees a group of cops instead.

Josh’s gun falls down, and the sound of it hitting the floor shoots through Tyler’s head like a bullet.

“Fuck,” Tyler whispers.

Their attacks always come as a surprise, it’s _their thing_.

But now they’re trapped, and there’s no way out.

Tyler only has one gun and at least four barrels of the guns all pointed at him.

Tyler swallows, grabbing at his neck as he sees one of the armed men ripping the mask off Josh’s face; Josh’s eyes are closed, and there’s too much red — his curly hair, his eyeshadow and the blood leaking from the cut on the side of his head.

“Hands up!” one of the cops orders, but Tyler keeps squeezing the gun in his shaking sweaty hands.

“Hands up or I’ll break his neck!” the man warns, getting Josh in a headlock.

Tyler has never seen Josh so helpless.

He hears a warning shot into the air and shudders at the loud sound; somebody stands behind his back, they’re _everywhere_ , and Josh is still unconscious.

Tyler keeps holding the gun in front of him; he sees Josh blink his eyes open and shake his head as he notices that Tyler is about to do something stupid.

Tyler always does stupid things when Josh can’t control him. Josh’s lips twitch a bit.

 _‘No,’_ he tries to say.

Tyler doesn’t think twice when he feels a hand on his shoulder; he just spins around and pulls the trigger with his trembling finger. Everything happens too fast.

He thinks he hears a nasty crunching sound coming from the rear, and he knows what that means, but he prays for it to be just a hallucination. He can’t turn back to Josh, because he’s staring at the crimson puddle and at the body on the floor in front of him.

Tyler has never killed anyone before.

So he feels kind of numb.

And he slowly raises his hands up, unable to throw the gun away.

He screws his eyes shut and waits for his inevitable death.

“We need to take him alive!” somebody roars. But staying alive without Josh by Tyler’s side is not fun.

_One, two, three…_

And Tyler runs to the nearest window, jumping over Josh’s lifeless body on his way _(‘don’t look, don’t look into his hollow eyes, don’t pay attention Josh’s neck’s twisted in a wrong way, don’t…’_ )

Tyler clamps his hands over his ears not to hear the loud sound of the gun being fired.

His shoulder slams against the glass, and Tyler feels it shatter and tear the skin on his face and hands apart. _(‘It’s the second floor, I hope it will be enough, Josh, I’m coming!’)_

Tyler is fast, but the bullet is faster than him.

His life doesn’t mean a thing for the whole fucking Universe.

Something hot and sharp hits his back right in time he jumps out of the window.

Tyler’s consciousness falls into a black void before his body hits the ground.

 

***

“Get the fuck up, Joseph!”

Cold air smells like sweat and mold, hitting Tyler’s nostrils so hard he almost gags. He hears the echo of heavy footsteps, but he can’t open his eyes or lift his throbbing head up.

Tyler winces when some people begin to speak, and Tyler imagines his ears start to bleed from the noise.

This still doesn’t happen though. There’s the sound of metal rasping against metal, impossibly loud, and Tyler’s head feels fuzzy, and his body is apparently still sleeping even though he knows he has to protect himself from whatever it is.

“What the fuck happened to him?”

“I dunno, this freak has just passed out again.”

“I have to go and check Donnie.”

“Alright, go,” the voice replies, the footsteps travel away from Tyler. “Joseph. Get the fuck up, I said!”

With that, Tyler feels a hard blow coming from the periphery and straight to his ribs. Tyler coughs and curls into a fetal position, trying to make himself as small as possible, but somebody’s foot kicks him in the stomach immediately.

Tyler lets out a short pained gasp, and his clouded mind reluctantly gets back to reality.

“Where… where am I?” Tyler wheezes out, pushing himself into a sitting position.

“In Disneyland,” a man smirks.

“Oh,” Tyler rubs his face and tries to look around.

He finds himself half-lying near the metal bars, in his-  _cell?_  Some memories start to creep into his head, and the last thing he remembers is being in the bank with Josh and getting caught by the police, and  _shit_.

Josh Dun aka Spooky Jim is dead.

Tyler stares at the grey wall in front of him and sees some drawings attached to it. The picture of a guy with the blood flowing out of his eyes reminds him of his Josh, his boyfriend and partner, and Tyler even forgets about the guard still standing next to him.

Tyler’s head hurts. Well, it starts pounding even worse when Tyler gets slammed against the metal bars, and he finally realizes that his clothes don’t feel comfortable anymore — he was dressed in a black shirt and black shorts and leggings, and now his outfit is orange-

Orange.

He’s in the prison.

Fuck.

Tyler only tries to touch his back — what if the bullet didn’t shoot him? But his face still hurts; it’s probably bruised and covered with deep scratches, and Tyler still remembers his sick jump out of the window.

Tyler killed an officer.

But Tyler is still alive.

And Josh is dead.

Tyler knows he deserves this, and he doesn’t refuse when the guard drags him out of the cell and pins his arms behind his back, leading him down the hallway. Out of the corner of his eye, Tyler catches other prisoners as they pass by- some of them grin at him, some of them just ignore him like he’s just an orange shadow.

Tyler doesn’t remember being sued, and he’s pretty sure the cops couldn’t just lock him up here while he was unconscious.

He looks left and right to get himself prepared for any danger, and his heart almost freezes in his ribcage when he sees  _Josh_  inside of one of the cells.

“Josh?!”

Tyler turns his head, feeling a sudden wave of happiness wash over him. It takes only a second — Josh just stands there behind the metal bars, in his black beanie and a sleeveless shirt, and he gives Tyler the warmest smile, but he disappears without a trace when Tyler blinks.

“Josh?” Tyler calls, wriggling in the guard’s grasp. “Josh!”

“What the fuck are you doing?”

Tyler probably moves too much and gets punished for that; his guard pushes him against the bars, and Tyler doesn’t have a time to react and soften the hit. There is a sharp pain in his nose and a trickle of blood on his lip, but it doesn’t bother him, because he stares into the dark _empty_ cell.

And it hurts much more than pieces of glass in Tyler’s body.

“I need Josh,” Tyler whispers, grimacing at the metallic taste in his mouth.

“Who the fuck is Josh?” the guard asks, Tyler feels him radiate with disgust. “Your dead fuckbuddy?”

Tyler suddenly feels like his stomach might twist itself inside out right then and there.

“Josh is not dead,” Tyler mutters stubbornly.  _‘And he’ll come and save me.’_

***

Though, Josh doesn’t save him during the day, and Tyler is forced to deal with the all the carnivorous glances and hard thumps the prisoners give him during the walk.

The dinner doesn’t bring much joy either.

An inedible mess on the tray looks like vomit, and Tyler suddenly says that out loud. The guy sitting next to Tyler warns him that he’s going to shove it down Tyler’s throat to shut him up.

Tyler’s stomach churns at the thought of eating.

 _‘It’s a jail, man. Everyone is aggressive here,’_ Tyler thinks, grabbing the spoon and wondering if he will ever get a chance to stick it into somebody’s eye.

 

***

This prison is the weirdest place ever. It’s Tyler’s third day here, and he can swear something changes each time he falls asleep or just blinks — the mold on the wall of his cell changes its color, rusty metal bars suddenly become clean and then rusty again. Tyler’s clouded mind can’t register all of it, but it doesn’t mean that nothing happens.

The rain drizzling from the grey sky keeps soaking through the collar of Tyler’s uniform, and he just aimlessly roams the courtyard along with a bunch of other prisoners. He can’t help but compares himself to them — he’s taller than some of them, but he’s way too skinny.

They always stare at him, and Tyler only clenches his fists, throwing his ‘I-don’t-give-a-fuck’ mask on.

It never helps.

“Hey you,” a huge dude yells, and Tyler isn’t surprised it’s addressed to him.

So he just lowers his head and goes in that direction. Maybe Tyler doesn’t look like he can kill a person using only his finger, but he is not a coward.

Maybe, he’ll finally meet Josh if he dies today.

This dude is much bigger than Tyler, taller even.

“Are you Blurryface?” the dude asks with a scornful grin on his face, getting up from the bench.

Tyler just nods.

“I heard about you,” the other prisoner joins them.

Tyler looks down at his hands and realizes he has some light smears of a black paint on them. His hands were clean a minute ago.

Tyler’s past life is going to stab him in his back. Again.

_Josh._

Tyler zones out for a while, but the following question makes him break out in a cold sweat.

“You’re pretty,” somebody whispers into Tyler’s ear, and Tyler almost jumps to the side, realizing he’s surrounded by the prisoners, and they’re reaching their hands to him and sneering.

“Do you know what we’re doing with pretty guys here?”

Yes, Tyler knows. It’s one of his countless fears. 

And he will never let them do something like that to him.

“Why the fuck don’t you want to be friends with us?” the guy asks, his words come out as a hiss. “Donnie is your friend, remember that.”

Oh, here’s Donnie.

Tyler pushes Donnie’s large hand off his shoulder roughly, glaring at his opponents but taking a step backwards. They’re just slowly driving him into the corner, and Tyler feels strong arms wrapping around his waist, and-

“Come on, kid, come to Daddy,” Donnie whispers, gripping Tyler’s shoulders. “I can fuck you better than your boyfriend.”

Tyler sees red.

This asshole is not allowed to say anything about Josh, and Tyler swears he’s going to shred his tongue to pieces and make him swallow it back.

He’s the one who starts the fight — his first fight without Josh — and his fist slams into Donnie’s stomach, and it brings nothing but a terrible pain in Tyler’s knuckles, but he waves it away and hits him again.

Well, at least he tries to behave like a grown-up man.

Somebody tries to grab his arms, but Tyler is so mad he knocks them off his way, making a mad dash at Donnie and tackling him to the ground. Though, Tyler is so busy painting Donnie’s face with bruises that he forgets about the others and gets a hard blow in the back of his head.

It’s enough for Tyler to black out for a moment, and the next second he’s on the ground, covering his head with his hands, and the rain keeps pouring from the sky, and the punches keep coming, and when Tyler tries to change his position to fight back he gets kicked in the stomach so hard he feels bile rising up his throat.

He’s on the verge of passing out again when he notices a light gleaming, and suddenly the prisoners stop kicking him; at first, Tyler thinks it’s just a guard came to help him, but when his vision finds the focus he almost cries.

_It’s Josh._

“Shit, Ty, I’m sorry, I am too fucking late, hey, do you hear me?” Josh hunches over him, and Tyler doesn’t see Donnie and his minions anymore. It’s just wonderful, because Josh is here, and the sun starts shining through the clouds.

But Josh is not wearing that orange jumpsuit for some reason. Josh picks Tyler up from the ground, and Tyler presses his nose to Josh’s collarbone, bleeding all over it, but Josh doesn’t scold him.

Josh never gets mad at him.

They have their names tattooed on each other.

Though, Josh looks a little different — Tyler notices a small tattoo under Josh’s left eye, something like a tiny copy of arrow, when did he manage to get it?

“You’ve stayed with me,” Tyler whispers, throwing his arm over Josh’s neck. “They said you were dead.”

“Come on, if I were dead I wouldn’t have saved your ass, yeah?” Josh chuckles a little, and Tyler wonders where they’re going.

He can’t get enough of Josh, of his smile and squinty eyes, and his pink curls, and Tyler wants to kiss him right now, but his eyelids feel heavy, and his head feels light, and then Tyler’s mind just turns off.

 

***

He’s lying on a hospital bed, oxygen mask on his face, the IV in his vein, the heart monitor beeping steadily. His bandaged head is just a mess of bruises and scratches; his broken arm is covered with an ugly cast.

Tyler’s mother is crying over his almost lifeless body, begging the doctors and God to create a miracle.

He fell from the second floor straight onto the metal fence; his body is just a pile of broken bones and injured organs, there’s a gunshot wound in his lung and his heart stops nearly every couple of hours.

“He will probably never wake up,” the surgeon says, ignoring Mrs. Joseph’s tears and pleas.

 

***

Tyler wakes up in the room that smells like his dirty cell, unsure if he wants to face the reality once again.

“Hey?” a light touch brushes over Tyler’s bare wrist.

“Hey,” Tyler opens his eyes, and Josh greets him with a worried smile.

Josh’s skin is emitting a faint golden light, almost unnoticeable, or maybe it’s just a single light bulb on the ceiling plays these tricks on Tyler’s eyesight.

“You are not real,” Tyler whispers, running his fingers through Josh’s tousled curls. Tyler is lying in a hard bunk, and Josh is sitting on the floor beside him.

“But you only see what you want to see, and it’s not bad, right?” Josh leans closer and nuzzles Tyler’s shoulder, but Tyler knows it’s just one of his hallucinations.

He vaguely remembers something; he saw a bright light while he was unconscious, he heard a muffled sobbing, and there was too much _real_ pain, tearing his muscles apart.

“Those dudes just disappeared,” Tyler says, trying to sit up and waiting until the room stops spinning. “I saw that.”

“Ty, they knocked you out, you can’t remember anything,” Josh protests, his eyes slowly fill up with guilt.

Josh has a secret. Tyler hates secrets.

“How did you get here? Why aren’t you wearing the uniform?” Tyler now has a chance to look at Josh closer, and he notices some foreign tattoos on his bare left arm — Tyler doesn’t know what these symbols mean, but he’s sure Josh has made them mean something to him.

“I’m…” Josh freezes with his mouth open while Tyler tries to control his tremor, pulling his knees to his chest.

Maybe, he hit his head harder than he thought.

“You were dead, Josh, I saw it, that cop broke your fucking neck,” Tyler mumbles. If Josh is a ghost now, it means that Tyler is just a psychopath.

Tyler screws his eyes shut and counts to ten before opening them again.

He regrets it immediately, because there’s the emptiness in his chest, and there’s no Josh in his cell. And it’s Tyler’s fault.

 

***

It’s the afterlife. Tyler keeps getting those visions of him dying in the hospital, of his mother crying, and he has to finish this mental torture.

Tyler doesn’t remember the last time he slept. The prisoners don’t try to talk to him anymore, and Donnie doesn’t even look at him; Tyler gets into a violent fight with the prison guards and ends up coughing up blood all over the toilet in the corner of his cell.

He isn’t sure if he still feels the pain.

The next time Josh appears is creepy. Tyler is having a mental breakdown: he’s screaming and punching the walls, and he’s ripping and tearing the drawings to pieces. He’s trying to find something sharp, or a rope, or a bottle of pills. Rat-poison would be pretty great as well. Tyler rips the bedsheets off his bed; he tries to tie them around his neck and looks up at the ceiling, checking if he has something to tie the other end to.

“Tyler, don’t…”

His head swims when he spins around and sees Josh, standing here and eyeing him concernedly.

“It’s not real,” Tyler repeats. He drops the bedsheets on the floor.

“You will never know what’s real, Tyler,” Josh sighs, rubbing a new tattoo on his shoulder.

“No one can see you,” Tyler points out, looking at the grey dust on the bright-orange fabric of his jumpsuit.

“But you can,” Josh flops down onto Tyler’s bed.

Josh is dead and he knows it.

Tyler just got lost in the prison of his mind where his own fears suffocate him.

Josh smiles, and for a second Tyler feels like he can fight these illusions and find the right way out.

One second is enough to find courage and share one more kiss with Josh.

It’s like a gulp of a fresh air; Tyler feels Josh slowly crawl on top of him, pressing him down to the bunk and unbuttoning his ugly and baggy jumpsuit.

 _‘It’s not real,’_ Tyler tells to himself. He only winces when Josh’s hand slides over the bruise on his side.

“Relax,” Josh exhales into Tyler’s lips.

And Tyler obeys.

He hears Josh’s wet and heavy breathing as he tries to get him out of his clothes, and Tyler thinks back of him and Josh having sex in the bunch of weird places: in cars and on the motel rooftops, in public bathrooms and on the truck stops, even in the closet during some house-party once.

And now they’re gonna do it in the prison.

And Tyler can’t choke back the moan when Josh pulls the orange uniform down his legs and spits on his palm, slipping it into Tyler’s underwear.

Every Josh’s touch feels a little different this time, like he’s just trying to take control over Tyler’s body, and it reminds Tyler of those good old days when they were just inexperienced teenagers.

But Josh knows a thing or two about how to get the guy off.

Tyler thrusts desperately into Josh’s fist, gasping and rolling his eyes while Josh fumbles with the belt on his skinny jeans with his free hand.

“Don’t stop,” Tyler exhales, pulling Josh’s pants down along with his boxers.

If the world is going to crash down, Tyler doesn’t care.

 

***

“Tyler, wake up!”

“Mhm, what?” Tyler almost falls off a thin mattress.

“It’s time to go,” Josh responds.

Tyler is still half-naked so he tries to button his uniform up; he’s pretty sure he misses some buttons, but Josh stands near the rusty bars-

No, there are no bars anymore, Tyler can see a long dark hallway, and he can’t believe his eyes.

“Have you just… Have you just opened the cell?”

Josh huffs, adjusting his black beanie.

“Yeah, are you going to just stand here?”

“Why didn’t you do that earlier?!” Tyler hisses and feels like he’s going to punch this fucking guardian angel.

“Because you didn’t want me to. Dude, you didn’t even believe me!” Josh shouts; he snatches Tyler by the collar of his jumpsuit and pushes him closer to a black gaping hole.

Josh is right, Tyler has to admit that.

They walk down the hallway, stepping over the puddles of water on the floor; Tyler constantly trips over the chunks of wood and metal, but Josh is there to hold him upright when Tyler’s heart almost bursts.

Shaky ceiling lights make little things turn into huge monsters. He just notices a shadow, but he’s already scared enough to let out a short yelp.

“Fuck,” Josh breathes out. “A rat.”

Tyler hates rats.

They just keep going forward, then downstairs into a huge and poorly lit basement; Tyler’s trembling hands begin to sweat when a loud sound of the alarm hits his eardrums.

“What is this?!” Tyler cries out, and Josh suddenly shoves him against the wall.

He sees stars and fireworks when his head slams against the stone, and when he manages to get his vision back, Josh is not here.

The alarm keeps yelling, and the last living thing in Tyler’s mind dies.

His last hope dies.

He just sits on a filthy floor, cross-legged, when the guards break into the basement, armed and ready, and Tyler is just a worthless vessel for his fears; when he feels a cold barrel of a gun pressed to his temple, he just closes his eyes.

He knows what he deserves.

 

***    

There’s a lot of shaking and huffing, somebody’s hands are wrapped around his shoulders, squeezing him. The darkness gets replaced with shapeless colorful stains, and the stream of the stale air hits Tyler’s lungs as he finds himself being able to breathe. He gasps and sits up so quickly everything turns black again; a hand rubs his back, and he hears a familiar voice.

“Hey, sh, it’s okay, you’re alright now. Tyler? I couldn’t shake you awake for like twenty minutes.”

“Oh shit.”

Tyler closes his eyes again and falls back onto something pretty hard. His tongue feels heavy and swollen, and he can barely part his dry lips to speak.

“You’re awake, _finally_ , dude, you were like convulsing? Hey?”

The most unpleasant memories flood Tyler’s head.

_‘This freak has just passed out again.’_

Something has changed.

“Josh,” Tyler starts, swallowing the lump in his throat and groaning. “Tell me you’re real.”

He hears a nervous laughter in response.

“What? Ty, of course I am, did you like, hit your head or something?”

Yes. His brain is just a piece of rotting meat.

Tyler still can’t see straight so he squints his eyes to block out the light coming from the little reading lamp on a bedside table, and Tyler realizes he’s lying on the floor with his head on Josh’s lap. And every single bone in his body hurts, every inch of his bruised skin is throbbing with pain.

“Stay with me,” Josh says, pressing his hand to Tyler’s forehead. “Man, you’re burning!”

Tyler doesn’t care. Josh is alive again, and it’s the best thing ever happened to Tyler.

He thinks he has to go to church.

“You’re alive,” Tyler slurs. “But Josh, I swear I saw you being killed right in front of me, and I just can’t…” Tyler chokes on his babbling. “I don’t want to lose you.”

Josh’s red messy curls are still a little damp after the shower, and there’s a tiny shaving cut on his chin, and there’s no any tattoos on his face.

And Tyler is wearing his jeans and a t-shirt, and that orange jumpsuit is gone. He’s not in the jail, he’s not in the hospital- he’s still in a crappy motel room, and Josh is freaking out, trying not to let him pass out again.

Because it’s the real life.

It’s the evening before that goddamn robbery.

It’s the Sign.

“I’m not gonna leave you,” Josh whispers, and Tyler believes him. “Your cheek is bleeding, wait a second.”

Josh brings paper towels and a small cracked mirror, and Tyler finally takes a look at his reflection. He has three short but deep wounds on his left cheek, a long scrape across the bridge of his nose and a massive blackeye. Marks from the future that hasn’t happened yet.

Amazing.

_‘Josh, sorry, I jumped from the second floor while you were dead.’_

Thank God, Tyler’s bones aren’t broken.

Josh is wearing jeans with huge holes on the knees, and Tyler can see his name tattooed on Josh’s skin. This makes him feel calmer. Josh looks a bit confused when Tyler asks him to roll up the sleeve of his shirt; his left arm is clean, skin soft and a bit freckly. It’s Tyler’s _unmarked_ Josh.

The tattoo on Josh’s right arm is the most beautiful picture Tyler has ever seen.

 

***

After cleaning Tyler’s injuries, they’re lying on the bed; Tyler’s head rests on Josh’s chest.

“How did you manage to just faint and get bruised all over?”

“It wasn’t just a faint. Josh, I’m trying to warn you!” Tyler screams, focusing on his rapid breathing.

There are seconds before he starts hyperventilating. He won’t let Josh leave the motel tomorrow; he’s going to knock Josh out and tie him up if it’s necessary.

“What?”

“We still have enough money, we don’t have to do that tomorrow.”

“But we have a plan…”

Tyler clamps his palm over Josh’s too big mouth.

“It’s a bad plan.”

“So what is a good plan then?”

“Not going anywhere tomorrow. We have to take a break.”

“You said you saw me dying?” Josh rolls onto his side, facing Tyler.

“It’s not funny, Josh. I heard the sound of your neck breaking,” Tyler shudders and reaches his hand for a blanket.

“It was just a dream,” Josh says skeptically.

“No, it wasn’t,” Tyler mutters, feeling the warmth of Josh’s body pressed to him. “I shattered the glass with my face and got scratches. Then, I woke up in a prison and got my ass kicked by literally everyone, and you were something like my guardian angel because you were dead, and I was still kind of stuck between the life and death. We had sex in my cell. Then, I think I died in the prison’s basement and woke up in real life.”

Well, if Josh doesn’t believe Tyler’s words, he’ll definitely believe Tyler’s bruises.

“We had sex there? In the jail?” Josh smiles, his teeth white and straight; Tyler wishes his own teeth were as straight as Josh’s.

“Um. Yes.”

“I love your fantasies,” Josh smirks, tickling Tyler’s stomach with his finger.

“Oh, shut up,” Tyler slaps Josh’s hand when he starts unzipping his pants.

“Alright. Sorry. I guess you feel like shit, so alright. Let’s just get some rest. No robberies tomorrow, deal.”

Tyler feels like shit, indeed.

He sighs and clings to Josh, throwing his leg over Josh’s waist and wishing the nagging pain in his limbs would go away.

Tyler would like to say everything has ended up well.

But there’s no ending.

**Author's Note:**

> i think that the prison in heathens video exists only in tyler's mind, idk my headcanons may have no sense  
> \---  
> i also tried to represent tyler's fears as guards/prisoners


End file.
